In an automatic winder having a number of winding units juxtaposed to one another, yarns drawn out from cops are wound on paper tubes. With respect to such paper tubes, a device has been known in which each winding unit is provided with a paper tube stock section to doff a copy from the stock section and supply it when the cop is made full.
Such a device is known, as example, by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,066,218 and 3,323,680 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 1853/78. The known devices, however, are complicated in structure, because each unit requires a stock section and a take out device. Further, when the device is used in an automatic doffing apparatus where the device is run as a doffer along the winding units, the device may impede the running operation of the apparatus. In addition, paper tubes are manually supplied to the paper tube stock sections of the units, thus necessitating a cumbersome operation.
Accordingly, in some devices, each winding unit is not provided with a paper tube stock section. Instead, paper tubes are received in carriages equipped with the aforementioned doffers, so that the received paper tubes may be released and supplied simultaneously with doffing operation. A problem with the devices of this kind is that the number of paper tubes which can be received in the carriages varies considerably, depending on the shape of paper tube. For example, a paper tube or wooden tube used as a cheese is cylindrical and hence has no directivity. Therefore, a number of paper tubes can be received in a given space and so once they have been received, an automatic doffing can be effected for a long time.
On the other hand, when each paper tube is conic and used as a cone, the paper tubes to be received in a doffing carriage must be aligned and separated. Further, only several tubes can be received. Accordingly, frequent supply of paper tubes to the carriage is required. Thus, means for effectively stocking and transporting a number of conic paper tubes to be replenished have been sought for.